Throughout Europe and America great artwork is housed and protected in galleries and museums.

The great Masters have the material expressions of their inner vision set aside for posterity and for all to see and marvel at.

These paintings and sculptures are insured and guarded against anyone defacing them.

It’s a criminal offense to deface them. 

If one tried to throw paint at the statue of David, in Florence, the Italian authorities would detain and arrest you.

God made great works of Art.

Not only the Creation we call Earth and all the universe…

but you and me.

Think about the intricacy with which your body functions. 

Consider the involuntary organs which work while we sleep. 

Consider how your skin heals after a cut. 

Study how your eye gets the water it needs from the tear duct.

Da Vinci created many great works.
Michaelangelo painted and sculpted great beauty. Many say The Sistine Chapel was his greatest work.

We are God’s Greatest Work.

We are, however, not placed in museums to merely be gazed upon.

We are great LIVING works….

set in motion to deliver blessings from the beauty within us.

If we shroud ourselves in fear and shutter up what God intended to be shared

it would be like whitewashing the Mona Lisa.

Defacing da Vinci’s lady is crime.

Restricting the gifts and beauty painted and sculpted onto and into YOU 

by Our Great Artist….

does not get you arrested…

but it arrests and retards the progress of His Intention.

Let the great work of Art that is YOU…

shine and be shared and seen and fully revealed to the fullest intention of Our Great Artist.

Today I was getting out of the car to meet a friend for breakfast.

Usually I get to the restaurant about 30 minutes before so that I can read my Bible and the devotion for that day.

Today, as I got out of the car I was reaching for my pen in the armrest and I saw my friend drive up.

I said to myself…” I don’t have time for the devotion today”.

And I realized the fallacy of that statement.

I chose to not arrive earlier. I chose to be on time rather than be early.

I had time…I chose not to TAKE the time this morning.

As I felt the sting of that comment…”Not having time”, I said to myself, “That WILL not get to be a habit.”

It could.
But it cannot.

“I do not have time for God” – A statement that cannot be made on any consistent basis by a pursuant Believer.

“I don’t have time”

No beating your back with the nine-tailed cat, but it’s choice we all need to correct.

Human beings MAKE time for the things they WANT to do.

From Labor Day through Thanksgiving, Saturday afternoons and evenings are set-in-stone appointments for college football fans.

It’s time set aside.

Say “I don’t have time” to your spouse and you will be denied a few things.

Say “I don’t have time” to your children enough, they will find something or someone who does have time.

God made time.

He placed the earth in orbit and rotation to allow daytime to work and night to rest.

He made the week to work and Sunday to worship and rest.

I DO have time.
Today I chose not to take it.

Looking at it one way…I “big timed” God today by telling Him I did not have time for Him.

That’s not His problem…It’s mine.

It can be an escalating problem if I choose to allow it.

I purpose today that it will not occur tomorrow.

Terry
May 14, 2015

I have a friend in Advertising. He produces websites, videos and many things to market and tout the people contracting his company’s services.

Marketing pieces, billboards, commercials, the small boxes on the internet you skim over are all selling, promoting, attracting and persuading the viewer to an interest, a product or company.

Women spend time and money on make-up and methods to enhance their beauty and to be attractive.

Are you an attractive Christian?

Do you persuade people to an interest in Christ?

Or do you persuade and attract them to another subject?

Persuasion draws us, many times, to our choices. Persuasions, both conscious and subliminal, lead us to many of our decisions.

Persuade others to Christ.

Learning Scripture and incorporating it into your everyday language is a way to persuade others.

Living out Kindness, Love, Charity, Forgiveness, Benevolence, all of the Fruits will positively persuade.

If you abide in Christ your words, actions and reactions will unintentionally exhibit the Fruits….and positively persuade others.

When your mindset is to have an effect on the world for His Kingdom…. then you will intentionally act Christlike, showing His Traits, operating in and through you.

You can persuade men as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5.

Burn Bright.
Be seen.

Let His Light shine…
It’s not your Light, it’s Him in you.

Be a billboard.
A good, positive one.

Persuade.

Terry
May 8, 2015

In 1988, Bobby Allison elevated from the track and hit a retaining fence at about 210 mph.
After that accident and with Bill Elliot lapping tracks at 213 mph the racing authorities initiated the use of Restrictor Plates.

These aluminum plates are placed between the carburetor and the intake manifold to reduce the flow of air and fuel and in so doing, limits or restricts horsepower and speed.

They limit speed. They hold the car back and the driver.

We could look two ways at this, however.
What are the restrictions holding down your progress, holding back the speed of your growth?

Preconceived notions about your abilities?
Negative comments uttered by someone of influence?
Self-induced comparisons to others?
These are all restrictor plates which can govern and hold back momentum, speed and the growth of your abilities and influence.

The NASCAR drivers say these plates have sometimes led to big multi-car wrecks and pile-ups because they keep all of the competing cars close together in groups as they circle the track.

They limit speed.
They level the playing field.
They create crowds.
There is a safety element to them, however.
These restrictor plates keep the most efficient and best drivers from the full use of their ability to drive and maneuver.

What restrictions keep you from being more efficient, productive and influential in your spiritual life, in your business life?

Insecurity?
Fear?
Past experience?
Complacency?

Christ removed the “plates” from Paul’s life on the road to Damascus.
Peter had his restrictions removed in the upper room after hearing a strong “rushing wind”.

Ask Christ to do that same work in you.
Work, pray and seek to remove the restrictor plates in your life and see how fast you can go and grow.

As you gain maturity and experience, confidently push the accelerator and see where your freedom takes you.

Terry

The many coaches I played under in my “playing days” attempted to encourage, to push, to drive everyone to a better performance.
Not always did I understand their methods, in some instances I was too young, but I knew they wanted us to be the best we could be individually and corporately.

Some used “any means necessary” to get improved performance.

Challenge
Cursing
Consoling
Comedy

They were trying to move us from our level to a higher one.

I see the same attitude in 2 Timothy where Paul tells the younger Timothy to remember the gift put inside him.

The the older tells the younger…”Stir up the gift of God inside you”.

That was a coach prompting a player.

Stirring him up.

Stirring him to move to a higher level.

Stir yourself up.

You won’t be shaken past what you can handle….if the Gift and Presence of God is stirred up in you.

It’s a constant.

One cannot stir themselves once, like coffee, and be done.

You must be consistently be stirring yourself up.

To the extreme, Ray Lewis used to do a strange dance to “stir” himself up before a football game.

Many lineman hit each other and talk each other up to “stir” their emotion and intensity.

I would implore you to “stir up the gift of God” within you.
If you do not, it will fade in intensity.
It’s not God that fades…it’s our openness to Him and our Desire for Him.

Think on It.
Meditate on It.

How to do it?
Read Scripture.
Think on It.
Stir those words into your daily life…like sugar in a drink.

Live like Christ.
That will stir you and others up.

Love like Christ.
That will stir your family and friends, and all of your relationships.

Stir It up.
Today.

Terry

I have a friend in Advertising. He produces websites, videos and many things to market and tout the people contracting his company’s services.

Marketing pieces, billboards, commercials, the small boxes on the internet you skim over are all selling, promoting, attracting and persuading the viewer to an interest, a product or company.

Women spend time and money on make-up and methods to enhance their beauty and to be attractive.

Are you an attractive Christian?

Do you persuade people to an interest in Christ?

Or do you persuade and attract them to another subject?

Persuasion draws us, many times, to our choices. Persuasions, both conscious and subliminal, lead us to many of our decisions.

Persuade others to Christ.

Learning Scripture and incorporating it into your everyday language is a way to persuade others.

Living out Kindness, Love, Charity, Forgiveness, Benevolence, all of the Fruits will positively persuade.

If you abide in Christ your words, actions and reactions will unintentionally exhibit the Fruits….and positively persuade others.

When your mindset is to have an effect on the world for His Kingdom…. then you will intentionally act Christlike, showing His Traits, operating in and through you.

You can persuade men as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5.

Burn Bright.
Be seen.

Let His Light shine…
It’s not your Light, it’s Him in you.

Be a billboard.
A good, positive one.

Persuade.

Terry

Allow God, everyday to draw your prayer life to a deeper and greater level.

It’s the trait of a deepening walk that you pray and meditate on the things and ways of God.

If not, then you are pit-stopping Him as you race through life.

You cannot get to a good spot or approach any leadership of quality
without that TIME alone with Him.

As leaders, please allow your Spiritual Father to foster His Spiritual Presence in your life.

You have been called and have answered and are in escalating positions of leadership.

It’s not hollow, if it is to be lasting and effective, then after The Call has been given and you answer, you then have to seek its’ full life.

It would be better to resign and abdicate your leadership than to stay, play and not grow into the full powered position of positive Influence available to you.

The people you lead and are influencing will not long follow hollow, shallow and weak leaders.

Reach out and pursue that to which you have been called. A great deal is up to you.

God leads, directs and prompts you. However, you must pick up your own feet and walk and change direction to walk to that “burning bush”. You must pursue and attain that to which you have been called, as Paul wrote.

For the future of our group, the future of your children, the future of the church,
Pursue It.
Attain It.

Live out that calling you have and are answering to the fullest.

Terry
May 5, 2015

So many people carry their past around like an albatross.

Even long time Christ-followers give too much weight to past wrongs they have committed.

The problem is we have minds with memories. Our minds take mental photographs of events and people and moments that do not fade with time.

That retention tends to attract our attention.

We review those mental images, which can lead to a mental reenactment of the event. That rehearsal then further concretes that behavior into our mind and leads to regret, the self-destructive behavior of
melancholy and many times to us beating ourselves up over nothing but a memory.

Someone told me they have dreams once in a while of past events and actually wake up with a sense of dread because they feel as if they are still on the middle of that dreamed-of event.

Those dreams of regret and bad judgement have been purged by Christ.
The wrong decisions and regretful behavior have been washed.

I heard the Casting Crowns song “East to West” yesterday.

They sing of what we are talking about. They say that Christ has forgiven and separated our sin from us “as far as the east is from the west”.

Then, the next line grabs the heart of the listener and brings a deeper understanding of the forgiveness of Christ, “One scarred hand to the other”.

The first time I heard those words they stunned me.
They formed a completeness in my heart.

“One scarred hand to the other.”

As Redeemer of all Men, as Cleanser of every Sin, when Christ spreads His Hands to include every
person who has ever lived in His Redemption, the span of those scarred Hands is totally inclusive and immeasurable.

It includes all of His highest creation. That span includes you and me, and all who allow those Hands to surround us.

We live in the Span of those redemptive, heart-cleansing, mind-clearing, held-wide “scarred Hands”.

Terry
April 30, 2015

We are an accumulation of parts.

External and internal, we are put together “Masterfully” for multiple uses. We have a coordination with all these various parts which usually works perfectly….which was the Original Intention.

We do not govern our breathing when asleep.
Neither do we purpose our heart to beat.
When cut, our epidermis rebuilds itself with a slow regeneration through stages of healing.

We are given skulls designed to protect the brain within. We are constructed with a cage of bones around our vital internal organs.

We are given those brains to think, reason and govern our voluntary responses.
We are given hands with fingers to manipulate the physical world around us.

Feet allow us balance and ambulatory ability.

All these elements function properly to allow us life and existence.

What’s the most important body part?
My answer is …do away with one and then decide its importance.

They are all vital and essential.

So it is with the various parts of the “body” of Christ.

Are you His Hands?
His Feet?
His Heart, Mind?

We all have a designated and gifted role in the proper functioning of the “body” of Christ’s Church.

Some are the Brains…,these people think and lead administratively.
Some are the Hands…these people reach out to draw and encourage others to come and grow. They serve to facilitate needs.
Some are His Eyes…they look around, watch and see the needs in people.
Some are His Heart…they feel the hurt and show the Love Christ poured and pours out upon the world.

Which part of the “body” are you?

I believe the secret to a successful Christian existence is to look, seek and find which “body” part God has formed you to be and to fulfill that use and practice.
The full practice of your Gift will make the “body” function more completely.

It’s what we are formed to do……to be the Mind, Eyes, Ears, Heart, Mouth, Hands and Feet of Christ in the world until we are used up and or until He returns.

Every part matters.

Every person matters.

You are indeed the “body” of Christ.

Be a fully involved and properly functioning part of that “body”.

Terry
April 29, 2015

We tend to do what we want to do.

As we grow as young men and women we develop relationships that move and morph into groups and cliques.

We gradually move toward and close to those like us or who are involved in a similar pursuit. A traditional saying there is that we “Run with” these people.
Some say these groups we affiliated with are our “Peeps”.

And these relationships can be deep and long-lasting or they can be fleeting.

How much we conform to that group depends on our similar thoughts, pursuits and desires.

These friends can lead us to Light and Life…these friends can also lead us into destruction and death.

We tend to do what we want to do.

Within theses circles…who influences you? Who do you influence?

Be awake, alert and aware that the relationships within the circles we “run” in can slowly lift us to Holiness, but can also draw us down in a pit of despair and destruction.

This very thing is what verses 7-19 of the First Proverb covers. Many of the Proverbs touch on this.

Never allow your desire for acceptance and comfort within the group you “run” with to outweigh what you, as a Christ-follower, know that He wants you to do or tells you to do .

Do not allow others to draw down your definition of Light, Right and Spiritual Sight.

Be the Influence, not the influenced.

It’s what Peter spoke of in 1 Peter 4:4.

Hold fast to what your heart and spirit know to be Right.

Let go of those relationships that require you to behave differently than you are in Christ.

We tend to do what we want to do.

What do you want?

Terry
April 27, 2015